


we're all professionals here

by Leamas



Category: SCP Foundation
Genre: Multi, post-SCP-3999
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 16:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16287761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leamas/pseuds/Leamas
Summary: Following the discovery of James Talloran's body, a specialised task force is sent to investigate. Draven Kondraki, leader of his task force, has some measure of personal involvement.





	we're all professionals here

After Draven finished his review of the briefing, he folded it over and passed it back across the table to Clef, who said, “Well?” as he took it back.

“Don’t you think it would be a little unprofessional for me to do this?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know,” Draven said, with a shrug. “But given my history with the deceased, I thought I’d ask.”

Clef looked at him for a long moment, not saying anything. Then he laughed, shaking his head. “So you and James Talloran used to fuck. Big deal. Let’s not pussyfoot around it, all right?”

The side of Draven’s mouth twitched. “Right.”

“Do you think that would stop you from going out to Site-118 and doing your job?”

It was a question that Draven didn’t know how to answer, not because it was hard but because he knew what would be more professional. Step back. Declare a conflict of interests. But Clef wasn’t looking for what was the decent thing to do according to protocol. He was looking for the truth.

“No, I don’t think so,” Draven said.

Clef grinned. “Then what’s the problem?”

                                      

Dr Chelsea Trager, Director of Site-118, was so small that the top of her head barely reached Draven’s shoulders. She had a square build and an angled face, like a head of a plastic doll being pinched between the fingers of a bored two-year-old. Her office was sparse, with white bookshelves and white picture frames hanging on the walls. As Dr Trager referenced the file in front of her, Draven took a seat he glanced around and could find nothing that looked like it could be personal.

Sitting to his left, Draven’s second-in-command, Angélica Rivera, asked, “Were any other documents about Dr Talloran corrupted?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Dr Trager said. “We haven’t finished looking through everything, and we’ve called RAISA in to do their own investigation. But everything looks the way that I remember. Everyone on site confirms this.”

“And do you think that could that be part of a reality-altering event?”

“How would I know?” Dr Trager asked. “Isn’t that your job?”

Angélica shrugged, and stole a glance to Draven. Either she was looking for back-up or for support, but Draven just focused on Dr Trager. “Can records about Dr Talloran be made available to us?”

“I can have his personnel dossier and medical records sent to you by this evening,” Dr Trager said. “We can also make his belongings and living quarters available for a few of you to have a look. The whole hallway where his room is has been cordoned off, so if it’s possible to take a look there sometime today then that would be great.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Draven said. “But we want to have a look at the shaft first.”

“Naturally,” she said. “I’ll have someone escort you there in a moment.”

“Before we go,” Draven asked, “Were there any reports of any odd behaviour leading up to the event?”

“Nothing,” Dr Trager said. She leaned across the table and looked between Draven and Angélica carefully. Neither of them moved, or spoke; they both read the Director’s face and recognised the expression. Most people wore this look once or twice—or more, in the Foundation. They were professionals here. This wasn’t magic, or unfounded superstition, or any other kind of woo; the inexplicable was only that because no one had worked it out yet. They were all professionals, and there was an instinctive bias against revealing anything that might come across as too personal, or unbiased, or silly.

“I’ll spare you the talk about how Dr Talloran was a good researcher, because I only let the best step foot on site,” Dr Trager said. “But from the moment that he transferred here, I had my eye on him. He had a good instinct. Everyone here does, but he had something else.” She paused, as though considering what she was going to say. Her gaze strayed towards Draven, who smiled at her, and then Dr Trager sighed. She sat up straight again. “What we deal with here is weird, and this is just something that we all have to accept if we don’t want to blow our brains. It’s weird, it’s dangerous—a lot of the time, the things that pass through this site violate a pretty good handful of laws of physics. You can learn this, but James was one of the few people I met who _understood_ that. I don’t think it ever scared him, that truth that we all have to swallow sooner or later. That we just don’t know as much as we want to. And he accepted that. Even if we never know, we don’t have to let the unknown make us its bitch.”

Draven wondered how many times James had sat where he was sitting now, and how many times Dr Trager would have looked on at him with the same thoughtful expression she wore now.

“He was a good scientist,” Draven said at last. “With a mindset like that.”

“Good doesn’t even cut it, Agent,” the Director said. “He was one of the best. If things had gone differently, I’d have had him to be lined up to take my place one day.”

 

It took most of the afternoon to explore Site-118’s new containment cell. When they finished they could only confirm that it was exactly as described: a steel-coated, acid-resistant shaft that stretched a mile into the earth and was lined with exploded Scranton Reality Anchors. But Hume levels were normal. It was well-constructed. If not for circumstantial evidence then there would be no reason to think that it was the work of the reality bender. There was nothing about the bottom of the shaft, where James Talloran’s body was discovered, that was any different than anywhere else on site.

“It isn’t right,” Joe Dzugaev said as he and Draven were escorted to the site’s personnel quarters. Their voices were low, for although the man escorting them to Talloran’s room was clearance-cleared, they were too in the habit of conferring only among themselves. “It’s too normal. There should be… something.”

“There is something,” said Draven. “There’s an entire shaft that wasn’t there two days ago.”

Joe eyed Draven warily as they made their way through the hallways. “Why aren’t there any readings?”

“We don’t know yet,” Draven said. “But we aren’t finished, are we?”

Soon they arrived at James Talloran’s rooms. True to what Dr Trager said, the whole hallway was cordoned off and empty. They could hear no one but each other and their escort. Draven gave a polite nod to the man, then removed the key that he’d been given to access James’ room.

James’ was small, and sparse. Unlike Dr Trager’s bleak office this didn’t look like an intentional aesthetic choice, but just the result of being too busy to finish settling in. There were books stacked on the desk and the bookshelf, and the dresser; there were boxes stacked under the desk, and in the closet. The bed was unmade. There was a red plastic cup next to James’ desktop. The only picture on his desk was a picture of James and his sister, from when he got his PhD.

“What do you think?” Joe asked. He was setting up some of the equipment they’d brought.

“I wonder if we can get our hands on what’s in those boxes,” Draven said.

“Probably. It’ll be only personal possessions, though. I don’t know if that’s really our thing.”

“We should probably arrange for something,” Draven said, “even if we just hand them off to the investigative team.”

“Yeah,” Joe agreed. “But you want to look at it yourself, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

Joe just shrugged. He finished setting up the equipment in front of him, and was just waiting for it took charge before he started taking readings. Draven hurried to prepare the laptop.

“I didn’t mean anything by that,” Joe said. “Did he keep his room like this when you knew him?”

“No,” Draven said. “His room was more lived in. When he transferred from Site-17 to Washington, he had the whole place looking like he’d been there for years, by the end of the day.”

“You wouldn’t know that he’d been here for three years, looking at this place.”

“It isn’t like your room looks much better, though,” Draven said, with a grin that Joe returned.

“I didn’t realise that you were looking at the décor.”

“I’m an agent,” Draven said. “It pays to be attentive.”

 

Draven lay with his head on Joe’s shoulder, happy enough to let him run his fingers through his hair. It never failed to put his mind at ease and to settle him, although tonight Draven wasn’t sure that he wanted to be settled. There were still the readings from James’ room to analyse, although they looked normal. Draven didn’t know if Joe’s anxieties were rubbing off on him or if it was just common sense: you always check thoroughly, even if everything looks right. Especially if it looks how it should. Talloran’s dossier had been sent over to them, too, and Draven wanted to review that before leaving Site-118. In general he thought that he should be doing something, anything, instead of relaxing with Joe like he might at home.

A knock on the door. Draven opened an eye, and Joe set down the book that he was reading.

“Who’s there?” Joe called, and the door opened. Angélica stepped inside.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said, and then winked at Draven, and as she sat down, added, “No pensé que Joe te estuviera haciendo compañía esta noche.”

“Es acaba de suceder,” Draven murmured.

“Pero no es mi turno?”

“Stop being homophobic,” Joe said. “You know I don’t speak Spanish.”

“Then learn!” Angélica said, slapping Joe’s leg. He kicked her thigh and she laughed, but then reached a hand up to lay it on Draven’s calf.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Me?” Draven asked. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

He couldn’t see Joe’s expression, but he saw Angélica look at him and he could guess. With a sigh Draven sat up, although Joe made this slightly more difficult than it had to be by not unwrapping his arm from around Draven’s shoulder.

“How do you want me to feel?” Draven asked.

“I don’t want you to feel any way,” Angélica said. “You know that I never would.”

“Yeah, but you clearly thing something.”

She shrugged. “I assume, that you might be feeling something… being here, and knowing what happened between you and James… And now he’s dead. I’d feel something, if I were in your shoes.”

Draven laughed. This wasn’t a situation he ever thought he’d be in. Other agents on the task force had died before, and that was about as close as it ever came for Draven, in terms of carrying personal baggage around with him on the job. It happened. It would happen again.

He’d be lying, though, if he didn’t admit that along with the nagging sense that there was more for him to do here, was the nagging sense that he should be feeling _something_ for James. At the very least he should be reminiscing, right?

“This probably makes me sound like a really awful person,” Draven said, “and definitely like a bad boyfriend. But I don’t… I’m not as upset as I probably should be. I’m not happy about it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll probably be crying about this the next time I get drunk. But I don’t feel like there’s a part of me missing, if that makes sense.”

Joe nodded. Angélica tilted her head to the left.

“Do you guys know why we broke up?” Draven asked.

“No,” Angélica said, and Joe shook his head.

“It wasn’t anything spectacular, so don’t get your hopes up. He moved off-site, to a smaller site further North. For a while we did the long-distance thing that everyone in the Foundation has to do at some point or another, but…” Draven grimaced. “I don’t know. We were both busy. He didn’t even have time to sort out his papers—I had to follow him up for three months before he could even update his address, and even now I still get the occasional Christmas Card or something. There came a point where the whole thing was just turning out to be more trouble than it was worth, trying to get in touch and make plans. Eventually I realised that I was feeling relieved when James would cancel on me—which was often. And I wasn’t even trying to make plans, in the end. He suggested that we take a break until our lives are more in order, and we have time to do this right.”

He grimaced.

“So it happened naturally,” Angélica said.

“I didn’t even know he’d transferred here.”

Angélica rubbed his leg sympathetically, and Joe squeezed his shoulders. Draven wished that they didn’t, but they were only trying to be kind.

“So to answer your question,” Draven said, “I’m fine.”

“Yeah.”

“There’s only one thing that bothers me,” Draven said, “and that’s how horrible it is. What happened to him. No one deserves that, but it especially sucks when you know the guy personally.”

“Oh, right,” Angélica said. “Obviously. It’s bad enough when someone dies, but…”

“It scares the shit out of me,” Joe said. “Thinking that it could happen.”

“Same,” Draven said. “And it does.”

“Yeah,” Angélica said.

“I feel like idiot,” Joe said, after a moment of silence. “It slipped my mind that James’ death wasn’t just… a normal death, if there’s such thing. I was thinking about you.”

“Yeah,” Draven said. “No, I get it. I’ve only really thought about it professionally, too.”

He was fairly certain that he’d be blowing his brains out if he thought too much about what reality benders could do to people, and what they _did_ do to people sometimes, like what happened to James.

 

Draven was given the opportunity to look through the boxes in James’ room. At first it felt like something that he shouldn’t be doing, and Draven had to draw on everything he’d been taught about compartmentalising in order to get through the first box. James was his ex, after all. But as he set that box aside and moved on to the next one—this one, filled with various noteworthy documents—it felt less like an intrusion and more like any other process.

Once, an annotation on some protocol sheet made Draven laugh, and he looked up, expecting to see James sitting at the desk and smirking down at him. He wasn’t there, of course. This shocked Draven.

Not long before he finished, Dr Trager came to look in on him.

“Found anything good?” she asked.

“Nothing that I wouldn’t have expected to see,” Draven said, and she nodded. He moved the pile of papers sitting in his lap and stood, facing her.

“I understand that you need to finish,” she said. “This isn’t something to be rushed. But if there’s any way that you could finish soon, then I would appreciate that.”

“Yeah,” Draven said. “Sure. No problem.”

“I just want to send his things off to his next-of-kin,” she said. “Having loose ends around… Never fun, is it? It’s odd having a task-force here, on-site. Like having a whole soccer team as houseguests. Usually you guys are just making a delivery, not looking through all our goods before going off to do somewhere more exciting. I’d bet being on-site is weird for you, too.”

“This isn’t the strangest place we’ve been called out to,” Draven said. “It’s only Canada.”

“It sure is.”

In the dim lighting Draven wasn’t sure if there was any particular shine in her eyes, or if it was just the reflection from James’ desk lamp—the site-issued standard desk lamp, because James wasn’t here anymore.

“Can I ask you something?” Draven asked.

“Of course,” Dr Trager said, standing up a little straighter. She uncrossed her arms from over her chest and looked at him, and Draven smiled to her.

“Did you know him personally?” When she didn’t answer right away, Draven clarified. “As a friend, and not just a researcher.”

“Yes,” she said, eventually. “I think you could say that. Enough people commented on that enough.”

“I mean no disrespect,” Draven said.

“None taken.”

“Was he happy here?” Draven asked, and to his relief Dr Trager smiled.

“Yes,” she promised. “He thought he had a future here.”

 

When he arrived back at Site-19, Draven dropped by Clef’s office. There were thirteen two litre bottles of Doctor Pepper on his desk, and a new microwave on his bookshelf.

“Drop off your report once it’s ready,” Clef said.

“I’ll have it for you by tomorrow,” Draven promised.

“It went all right?”

“Yes.”

“No second thoughts, or any of that other wishy-washy shit?”

“I haven’t had a change of heart, if that’s what you mean,” Draven said. “It isn’t any different, just because James was my friend. If anything—”

He cut himself off; Clef raised an eyebrow. Draven smiled.

“What are all these Doctor Pepper bottles about?” he asked.

“I’m trying a new diet.”

“Right,” Draven said. “I’ll leave you to… whatever you’re doing. I have a report to write.”

“Get out of here,” Clef said. “But wait. Before you do. The other day some things were sent over for you from Site-118. Not sure what, but they’re yours to collect whenever you have the time.”

“And here I was, naively thinking that I could have this report done by tomorrow.”

“It’s nothing you haven’t seen already,” Clef said, and when Draven tilted his head towards him Clef just laughed. “I mean it’s for you, boy. It looks like you’ve recently come into a bit of inheritance.”


End file.
